Racism in the Celebrity Big Brother house came up at prime minister's questions yesterday. Keith Vaz - a man who carries round a simmering pot of anger, ready to throw at someone - demanded that Channel 4 show more care before broadcasting racist material.

Tony Blair duly condemned racism in all forms. He added that he had not seen the show. That may be a mistake. This time next year he could be on it. ("Toe-knee iz clinning the toilit with 'iz tith!" the voiceover will say.)

It was probably the first time that Jade Goody had cropped up in the Commons, even by implication. You might argue that since she is a loud-mouthed, overpaid boor, best known for her fathomless ignorance and for being under the impression that anyone cares what she thinks about anything, she would fit right into the old place. That would be quite unfair.

The row was also an important lesson for Gordon Brown, who was caught up in the row during his tour of India. It must have been bewildering. The chancellor leads a blameless life for the most part, buried nose-deep in Treasury statistics and the Raith Rovers fixture list. Suddenly he had to cope with the kind of thing a prime minister fields every day. Mr Blair would have had a remark ready. "She truly is the people's pillock," perhaps.

Back in Britain, during a surreal question time, Mr Blair had to deny that he had described Mr Brown as "psychologically flawed". This remark (actually, "he has these psychological flaws") is usually attributed to Alastair Campbell, but this week Lance Price, a former Number 10 spokesman, said that it might well have dropped from the lips of the premier himself.

I suspect it came from neither. The remark is quoted in Andrew Rawnsley's book Servants Of The People, and refers to "someone who has an extremely good claim to know the mind of the prime minister". The source is later described as "this person" - in other words, no sex is specified. Which may be a helpful hint for political anoraks.

No matter. What a joy it was for the Tories that the prime minister had to stand up and deny in public that he had called his chancellor a loony, a fruitcake, wired to the moon, three annas short of rupee, makes Jade Goody look like Dame Mary Warnock, and so forth.

It cheered them up after David Cameron had failed to count up the number of questions he had asked. This meant that his slashing attack on Tony Blair over school uniforms was humiliatingly ended by the Speaker before he had reached his planned coup de grace. He was furious.

Round about this time we got figures showing that Celebrity Big Brother ratings had just gone up by 1 million - figures that any party leader would kill for.